


Rhubarb Pie

by unacaritafeliz



Series: Birthday baking [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Dex is in love with Nursey he just doesn't know it yet, Happy birthday Derek Nurse, M/M, Pre-Relationship, The pie is a metaphor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-22 10:00:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22714246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unacaritafeliz/pseuds/unacaritafeliz
Summary: "No," Derek says. "He couldn't... he wouldn't... he didn't! It's not realistic. He would not have made me a birthday pie.""Except he obviously did," says Bitty. He pulls his food from the microwave and crosses over to Derek, leaning down to inspect the pie crust. "He must have spent forever on these leaves too, he was always pretty bad at them."[Derek's birthday occurs during Bitty's baking ban. He gets a birthday pie anyway]
Relationships: Derek "Nursey" Nurse/William "Dex" Poindexter
Series: Birthday baking [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1966384
Comments: 12
Kudos: 287





	Rhubarb Pie

There's a pie on the kitchen counter.

It's a warm pie. A sweet-smelling pie. A pie with a dark red rhubarb filling visible under a neat lattice crust, decorated with small, intricately detailed pastry leaves along the edges. It's a pie sitting behind a neatly folded piece of cardboard, with Derek's last name written in block letters across the front, marking it as his.

It's a birthday pie.

Derek didn't think he was going to get a birthday pie.

He's been doing everything he can to keep Bitty out of the kitchen and into his thesis for both the sake of the team and the sake of his friend. He'd made his peace with his 21st birthday being the first Samwell team birthday in nearly four years to not be celebrated with a personalised pie for the birthday person.

But there's a pie on the kitchen counter.

Derek can't even bring himself to be mad about it.

"Oh, hey, Derek," says Bitty from somewhere behind him, and Derek pulls his eyes from the pie to see Bitty walking into the kitchen, wearing a new Ivy Park sweater and a deceptively innocent look. He walks over and wraps his arms tightly around Derek's waist. "Happy birthday!”

Derek laughs, wrapping his arms around Bitty’s shoulders and resting his chin on top of Bitty’s head. “Thanks Bitty,” he says. “Happy Valentine’s Day!”

“To you too!” says Bitty. He walks across the room and pulls a glass Tupperware container from the fridge. “Sorry I wasn’t here to wish you a happy birthday this morning. I had an early meeting with Professor Atley.”

“That's okay, Bits," says Derek. "You more made up for it with the illicit birthday pie."

Bitty freezes in front of the microwave. "Pie?" heasks. He spins around, eyebrows shooting up when he notices the pie sitting on the kitchen counter. He tilts his head, eyes squinting as he considers it, before the corner of his mouth tilts up in a smirk. “I didn’t bake that.”

"Really?" Derek chirps. "So this delicious rhubarb pie just magicked itself into existence, did it?"

Bitty rolls his eyes, turning to slam the microwave door shut and start heating up his food. "I don't know what to tell you, Derek," Bitty sings, over his shoulder. "But I didn't make that pie. I wish I had but I’m banned from every kitchen on campus, as _you_ very well know."

Derek rolls his eyes. "C'mon, Bits," he says, shaking his head. "You can admit it. I'm legit not even mad. I'm actually kind of relieved that you broke the baking ban for my birthday. I was afraid I wasn’t going to get any pie"

Bitty shoots Derek an unimpressed look, one of his eyebrows disappearing into his bangs. "Well, that just makes me feel bad,” he says, crossing his arms. “Because, once again, I didn't make the pie. You can ask Jack if you don’t believe me. I've been on Skype with him all mornin'."

Derek frowns, confused. Bitty could be bluffing, but surely he wouldn’t risk Derek telling Jack he was baking. Not that Jack would actually do anything bad, but he’d give Bitty his, surprisingly effective “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed” face and no one wants to deal with that.

So Bitty didn’t make a pie. And yet… there is a pie, in the kitchen, for Derek’s birthday.

"C'mon, Derek," says Bitty. "Use that big brain o' yours. If I didn't make it, where else could this pie have come from?"

Well, Derek supposes it could have been bought from the store... but no one on the hockey team is dumb enough to leave a store bought pie anywhere that Bitty could see it. Which means someone must have made it. But Foxtrot had an exam this morning and she's the only one on the team that's got any semblance of baking skills. Well, Foxtrot and...

The microwave dings. Derek's eyes widen. Bitty smirks at him knowingly.

"No," Derek says. "He couldn't... he wouldn't... he didn't! It's not realistic. He would not have made me a pie."

"Except he obviously did," says Bitty. He pulls his food from the microwave and crosses over to Derek, leaning down to inspect the pie crust. "He must have spent forever on these leaves too, he was always pretty bad at them."

It doesn't compute. There's no way Derek's brain can make sense of the information it's receiving. Like, sure, now that his arm is healed and he’s back on the ice, he and Dex are actually talking to each other again, but they’re still not friends. Hell, even at the height of their ‘friendship’ Derek wouldn’t have believed Dex would’ve made him a pie. It just doesn’t check out it.

And yet, there’s a pie in the kitchen.

"But why would he make me a pie?" Derek asks. "He hates me."

Bitty rolls his eyes. “He doesn’t hate you,” Bitty says. “The two of you are just tiny little babies who don’t know how to communicate properly.”

“I am legit the exact same age as you, Bitty,” Derek deadpans. He’d be offended at Bitty treating him like a kid, but he’s kind of used to it by now.

“Tiny. Babies.” says Bitty. When Derek doesn’t respond, Bitty’s face softens. He rests a hand on Derek’s arm. “I think he misses you, Derek. Maybe this is the only way he knows how to say it.”

Derek doesn’t know how Dex could miss him. Derek’s not the one that left.

He can’t say this to Bitty though. While Bitty won’t intervene in their drama unless it starts affecting the team, he’s always been adamant that Derek and Dex are both in the wrong. He probably thinks that Dex making a pie is enough to earn him Derek’s friendship after yelling at him for existing and then banishing himself down to the basement.

“Yeah,” says Derek. “Maybe.”

Bitty smiles. "Anyway, I gotta get back to studying," he says, picking his lunch up off the counter. "But I'll see you for your birthday dinner tonight, okay?"

"Alright, have fun," Derek says. "Say hi to Jack for me."

"I will!" Bitty calls over his shoulder. The door swings shut behind him.

Derek stares at the pie. The pie stares back.

He… probably shouldn’t just take a slice without thanking Dex first, should he? Regardless of whatever confusing reasons he had for doing so, Dex had made Derek a pie. It’d only be polite to share the first slice of pie with him. If it was anyone else, Derek would have just cut them a slice of a pie and headed to their room, but he can’t really do that with Dex. For one, he doesn’t think Dex would allow food into the basement bunker. And for another, well… Derek’s too scared to even go near Dex's room in the basement.

Look, Derek has enough self awareness to know that it couldn’t have been easy living with him, not for someone as straight edged as Dex and not when Derek was physically incapacitated by his broken arm and mentally incapacitated by the depression of being kicked off the team for months due to his broken arm. Still, the way Dex had just left had hurt. It still hurts. Derek’s never known anyone to hate his presence that much before.

Derek shivers. He’s not wanted down there. He can’t go.

Sighing, Derek takes out his phone. The kitchen’s neutral ground. Maybe they can eat their pie there. Or maybe Dex will ignore him and Derek can eat his pie in peace, his dumb sense of obligation satisfied.

_> > Hey. You home? _

Derek puts his phone down and gets their big, recently neglected pastry knife out of the drawer. When he crosses back over to the pie, his phone is flashing with a notification.

_< < Yeah._  
_< < What's up?_

Heart pounding, Derek responds.

_> > Study break?_  
_> > I'm in the kitchen._

The dots appear under Dex's name to show he's typing. They stay there for a long time. And then they disappear. Derek stares at the screen for a moment. The dot’s don’t reappear.  
  
Derek puts his phone down and turns to get a single plate out of the cupboard. He really doesn’t know what he was expecting. Dex probably just baked the pie out of a sense of obligation, of course he wouldn’t want to eat it with Derek. Derek cuts himself a single, if generous, slice of pie and turns to get a fork out of the draw when the kitchen door opens.

“Hey,” says Dex, quietly. “Uh, happy birthday.”

Derek spins around, shocked. Dex is hovering awkwardly in the doorway, hands twisting anxiously together. There's a tell-tale splodge of dark red pie filling on the collar of his flannel, squashing any lingering doubts of where the pie in the kitchen came from.

"Uh, thanks," says Derek. He grabs two spoons from the drawer and reaches to get another plate from the cupboard. "Do you want some pie?"

"Sure," Dex replies.

He grabs the knife off the counter and cuts another piece of pie, noticeably smaller than the piece Derek had cut previously. Feeling awkward hovering, Derek takes his own pie and sits down at his usual spot at the table while he waits.

Rather than sitting at his usual spot (i.e. as far away from Derek as physically possible) Dex sits around the corner from Derek. It's the closest they've sat together outside of Faber in nearly a year.

Derek glances at Dex out of the corner of his eye. Dex is staring down at his pie, very determinedly not looking at Derek. It’s awkward, in a way Derek’s not really used to. He doesn't know what to say to Dex. He hasn't known for a while.

He takes a bite of pie and is pleasantly surprised by how good it is. Maybe it’s because he hasn’t had one of Bitty’s pies in a while, but he doesn’t remember them being any better than this. He hadn’t realised Dex had gotten so good at baking.

“Uh, this pie is actually really good,” says Derek, his voice awkwardly slicing through the silence. “Thanks for making it.”

Dex snaps his head over to look at Derek, eyes wide. The tips of his ears are bright red. “It wasn’t a big deal,” he says. He looks away and aggressively shovels a bite of pie into his mouth. “Yours is the first birthday since we banned Bitty from baking and I..." he stops and takes a deep breath. "I would’ve done it for anyone on the team.”

“I know you would’ve done it for anyone else on the team, Dex,” says Derek, quietly. “I'm thanking you for doing it for _me_.”

Dex’s blush intensifies, spreading across his nose and cheeks. He stares at the pie like he’s trying to consume it through his eyes. “Yeah, well, you’re my partner,” he mutters. “I got your back or whatever.”

Dex glances up at Derek from the corner of his eyes. Derek’s breath catches in his throat. Dex is as much of an emotionally repressed lobster as he’s ever been, but it's clear that he’s trying to make things up with Derek. He's doing a terrible job at doing so, a single pie and a kind statement can't erase the months of hurt Derek's been through, but it’s a step in the right direction that Derek hadn’t even known Dex was capable of making.

“Well thanks,” Derek says, again. He scoops up his last bit of his pie onto his fork. “I really appreciate it.”

Derek finishes his last bite of pie at the same time Dex does. Their spoons land loudly on their empty plates. Derek glances around the room. Even after his revelation, he still doesn't know what to say to Dex, worried that anything he does say might break their tentative truce.

“I should probably get back to studying,” says Dex, after a few silent moments have passed. He stands, grabs both of their plates and takes them over to the dishwasher, stacking them methodically. “I have this coding assignment due on Monday and I want to get it finished before the roadie this weekend.” He turns around and offers Derek a small smile. “Thanks for the break though. Hope you enjoy the rest of your birthday.”

Dex walks over to the door. Derek watches him. He could just quit while he's ahead, let Dex go back to the basement and hold onto one good memory of Dex on his birthday, but Derek can see the pie on the counter and, well, he kind of wants to reach out too.

“Oh, yeah, I will,” says Derek. “But aren’t you coming for my birthday dinner?”

Dex pauses in the doorway. When he turns around, his eyes are wide with surprise. Derek doesn't blame him, just last night he’d been not-so-subtly hinting to Chris that he didn’t want Dex anywhere near his birthday dinner. 

“Oh,” says Dex. “I, uh… well… I...”

“I guess you probably have other plans,” Derek interrupts, taking pity on Dex's stuttering and giving him an out. Dex probably doesn't want to come to his birthday dinner anyway. “It is Valentine’s Day after all.”

“I don’t have other plans, Nursey,” says Dex, fiddling with the cuff of his flannel, and surprising Derek by not taking the out. “It’s just, umm… Do you really want me to come?”

It's still not enough, but this one question, this tiny act of Dex being considerate enough of Derek's feelings to ask well... It makes Derek feel like maybe Dex could grow into someone he can be friends with.

“I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t,” Derek says, with a small smile. “I’ll understand if you don’t, but you should come, Dex.”

Derek has often got in trouble for overly romanticising things. In fact, him overly romanticising his friendship with Dex lead them into this mess, since he thought he and Dex were chirping when it turned out they were arguing. Still, Derek is a poet and he can’t help but see beautiful, poetic things in every situation.

He can’t help but see hope shining in Dex’s eyes.

“What time's dinner?” Dex asks.

“We’re leaving the Haus at 6,” Derek says.

“I’ll be there,” says Dex. He smiles at Derek. The tips of his ears are still red. “I’ll see you later, then, Nurse.”

Dex leaves the kitchen, the door swinging closed gently behind him. Derek’s left alone with the remaining three quarters of the birthday pie that Dex made for him.

He smiles.

Maybe 21 will be a good year.

**Author's Note:**

> Is this good? No.  
> Is it on time? ABSOLUTELY (it is 11:59pm)
> 
> If you want a better birthday fic for our favourite boy, please read my 2018 Nursey week fic [A little loving in between.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13612062/chapters/31250478)


End file.
